Four day working week

摘要

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) indicates in its new report Future of Work that a four-day working week could become a reality this century. Referring to the report at the annual Trade Union Congress held in Manchester, the general secretary Frances O'Grady called for firms to use technology to help improve the lives of workers and cut the number of hours they spend working. However, the union also concedes that it may take government intervention for this to happen. Government and business estimate that new technologies could boost UK GDP by at least £200bn in the next decade. But most UK workers (51%) expect that the benefits of new technology will be hoarded by managers and shareholders, rather than shared fairly between managers, shareholders and ordinary workers (34%). The TUC says that the government must act now to make sure workers share in these gains, by raising workers' living standards and giving them more control at work. Currently, full time workers in the UK work some of the longest hours in the EU, behind only Austria and Greece, and they undertake some £32 billion worth of unpaid overtime. New analysis in the report shows that the number of people working all seven days of the week has now reached more than 1.4 million.